High speed, high precision, measurement techniques for ferrous material part position alignment

Electromagnetic measurement techniques for high speed, high precision, ferrous material part position alignment intended to provide high speed, high precision, robust part position alignment that is competitive with existing vision and contacting (touch probe) methods are discussed. It is shown that the techniques are applicable to both translational and rotational alignment problems consisting of symmetric or asymmetric surface projections and edges and are able to determine sensor designs to achieve maximum spatial resolution for a given alignment problem, to estimate spatial location much more accurately than by processing the actual sensor generated signal alone, since advanced information about the part is used in the location estimation process, and to use sensors that are inexpensive and easy to construct, making the method cost competitive with other forms of part alignment presently used.<>